ix, 593 pages : 24 cm

A controversial and powerful work, this monumental history is the first to show the decisive impact of the Holocaust on the identity, ideology, and politics of Israel. Drawing on thousands of pages of newly declassified documents, as well as on diaries and interviews, journalist-historian Tom Segev tells the dramatic story of how the yishuv - the Jewish community of pre-Israel Palestine - confronted the rise of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, and how Israeli society has dealt with the consequences since. With unflinching honesty, Segev examines the most sensitive and heretofore closed chapters of his country's history: the Zionists' problematic response to the Holocaust while it was happening; the new Jewish state's disturbing reception of Holocaust refugees, who found themselves despised by a society devoted to heroism and the "new man"; the revenge schemes against former Nazis, including a plot to poison the water systems of major German cities; the secret negotiations between Germany and Israel over reparations payments; and much more. As Segev masterfully traces the nation's struggles with this past - struggles fraught with emotion and saturated with politics - he also reveals how this charged legacy has at critical moments (the Exodus affair, the Eichmann trial, the Six-Day War, the case of John Demjanjuk) been molded and manipulated in accordance with the ideological requirements of the state. A vast hidden history, full of engrossing portraits of the major personalities - BenGurion, Begin, Nahum Goldmann - and rich with the details of everyday life, The Seventh Million shows the common goals and conflicting needs of which history is made, and how the bitter events of decades past continue to shape the experience not just of individuals but of a nation

Translation of: ha-Milyon ha-sheviʻi

Includes bibliographical references (pages 519-580) and index

Prologue: Ka-Tzetnik's Trip -- pt. I. Hitler: The Yekkes Are Coming. 1. "The Streets Are Paved with Money" 2. "A Son of Europe" -- pt. II. Holocaust: It Was in the Papers. 3. "Rommel, Rommel, How Are You?" 4. "Happy Is the Match" 5. "A Warm Jewish Heart" -- pt. III. Israel: The Last Jews. 6. "At First I Thought They Were Animals" 7. "A Certain Distance" 8. "Six Million Germans" 9. "A Barrier of Blood and Silence" -- pt. IV. Restitution: How Much Will We Get for Grandma and Grandpa? 10. "Add a Few Moral Arguments" 11. "Gas against Jews" 12. "The Baby Went for Free" -- pt. V. Politics: The Kastner Affair. 13. "It Is Hard for Us, the Judges of Israel" 14. "His Soul to the Devil" 15. "The Walls Are Beginning to Crack" 16. "Jeremiah the Prophet, for Example" 17. "There Is No Certainty That Our Children Will Remain Alive" -- pt. VI. Trial: Eichmann in Jerusalem. 18. "Let Them Hate, and Let Them Go to Hell" 19. "Six Million Times No!" 20. "Gloom Shall Not Prevail" -- pt. VII. Growing Up: From War to War. 21. "Everyone Thought about It" 22. "Hitler Is Already Dead, Mr. Prime Ministers" 23. "Deep in Our Souls" -- pt. VIII. Memory: The Struggle to Shape the Past. 24. "Holocaust and Heroism" 25. "The Rest of Your Life with Monik and Frieda" 26. "What Is There to Understand? They Died and That's It" 27. "When You See a Graveyard" 28. "What Does it Do to Me?"

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